Readings

1. Ernst, Carl. Following Muhammad: Re-thinking Islam in the Contemporary World. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003: 1-106. | Download the excerpt from Following Muhammad
2. Ruthven, Malise with Azim Nanji. Historical Atlas of Islam. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004: 6-57 | Download the excerpt from the Historical Atlas of Islam
3. Hodgsen, Marshall. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization Volume One. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974: 146-195. | Download the excerpt from The Venture of Islam

Summary

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Islam, like Christianity, Judaism and other world religions, varies in its  interpretations, rituals and practices. It is true that Muslims share certain fundamental beliefs, such as those expressed in the shahadah, the profession of faith: there is only one God and that Muhammad is His Prophet to whom was revealed the Qur’an. Yet, as the religion evolved after Muhammad’s death and spread beyond Arabia into many different regions and cultures, ranging from Bosnia and China to Yemen and Zanzibar, it came to be interpreted in diverse ways. This diversity was the result of the core set of religious beliefs interacting in complex ways with the many different contexts in which Muslims lived. Each of these contexts is defined by multiple factors, including its history, cultural traditions, its social, economic, political structures, and its geography and physical location in the world. Recognizing this reality, Abdol Karim Soroush, a contemporary Iranian intellectual, states, “There is no such thing as a “pure” Islam or an a-historical Islam that is outside the process of historical development. The actual lived experience of Islam has always been culturally and historically specific, and bound by the immediate circumstances of its location in time and space. If we were to take a snapshot of Islam as it is lived today, it would reveal a diversity of lived experiences which are all different, yet existing simultaneously.” (As quoted in Farish Noor, New Voices of Islam, 2002, 15-16).

Keeping this historical reality in mind, it is evident that the story of Islam involves peoples of many different races, ethnicities and cultures, many literatures and languages, with many histories, and a myriad of interpretations some of which may in conflict with each other. Not surprisingly, in view of this diversity, the late Edward Said, University Professor of English at Columbia University and a cultural and literary critic, wrote, “The problems facing anyone attempting to say anything intelligible, useful, or accurate about Islam are legion. One should therefore begin by speaking of Islams rather than Islam (as the scholar Aziz al-Azmeh does in his excellent book Islams and Modernities), and then go on to specify which kind, during which particular time, one is speaking about.” He goes on to say that keeping in mind the complexity and variety of concrete human experience, “it is much more sensible to try to talk about different kinds of Islam, at different moments, for different peoples, in different fields…..once one gets a tiny step beyond core beliefs (since even those are very hard to reduce to a simple set of doctrinal rules) and the centrality of the Koran [Qur’an], one has entered an astoundingly complicated world whose enormous – one might even say unthinkable – collective history alone has yet to be written.” (“Impossible Histories: Why the many Islams cannot be simplified,” Harper’s Magazine, July 2002, 69-74).

The Islamic Cultural Studies course is an invitation to explore a small slice of the rich and dazzling diversity that characterizes the worlds of Islam by examining the dynamic interaction between religious beliefs and practices and their political, economic, social, literary, and artistic contexts across time and space. Besides exposure to new content material, the course is also intended to equip you with the tools to analyze and think critically about what it means to study not only Islam, but any other religious tradition in its cultural contexts. In this broader sense, this course is about how to study religion in an academic context. The underlying premise of the course –  knowledge is culturally constructed – is as applicable to the study of the Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or Hindu traditions as it is to the study of Islam. To properly understand the role of religions in human societies, the course contends, we must go beyond descriptive summaries of beliefs and practices and look at them as a living and dynamic traditions that are constantly changing according to context and circumstance of their adherents. Ultimately, this course will help provide you with greater literacy about the study of religion in general and better awareness of the complexities involved in such study.

No doubt believers of many faiths who, being comfortable with understanding their religion from a devotional perspective, will have difficulties in coming to terms with the scholarly and analytical approach we have discussed above. Some Muslims, for instance, may insist that there is only one Islam and differences, if they exist, are superficial. But this conception is itself influenced by a certain cultural context. Such Muslims are not alone in this conception for there are non-Muslims who also conceive of Islam as one unified, homogeneous monolith. More recently, particularly after 9/11, a range of historians, political scientists, journalists, public intellectuals have also considered Islam as one mega-civilizational block, stretching across the globe, that is in conflict with the so-called West which they also conceive as a self-contained and unified civilization. The readings selected for Session One from Carl Ernst’s book, Following Muhammad, begin with a critical examination of the manner in which conceptions of Islam, and for that matter notions of “religion,” are culturally and politically constructed by Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

The readings from Following Muhammad also examine the Sources of the Islamic tradition, providing a brief overview of the crucial role that Muhammad as Prophet of Islam and the Qur’an, as scripture of Islam, play in defining Muslim religious, social and political consciousness. We will explore each of these sources in greater detail in Sessions Two, Three and Four. The second set of readings, from Historical Atlas of Islam, after a brief summary of foundational beliefs and practices, survey the historical expansion of Arab Muslim imperial rule beyond the Arabian peninsula, covering the period between 600  to 1100 CE.  Maps illustrate how the Islamic faith began in the Arabic world but spread to other areas where local culture, geography, language and ethnicity influenced beliefs and practices. The establishment of Arab rule in the Middle East led to the development of trade routes that were controlled by Muslim merchants, bringing in much wealth to the rapidly growing empires. With political and economic expansion, the Arabic language evolved into an international language of administration, culture, learning and commerce. As Arab power extended over more areas in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region, non Arab traditions, particularly the Persian and the Greco-Roman, were integrated. The result was a cosmopolitan civilization in which Arabic culture played an important part but in which also participated many different ethnic and religious groups.  The historical survey concludes with a brief discussion of the Crusades and the attempts by knights from the Christian kingdoms of the Latin West (including England, Scandinavia, Germany, Italy and France) to wrest political control of the Holy Land from Muslim rulers, damaging the positive relations that had previously existed between Muslims and Eastern Orthodox Christians in the Middle East.

Guiding Questions

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As you reflect on the readings in Following Muhammad and the Historical Atlas of Islam, consider the following questions:

1. Consider Carl Ernst’s statement, “It is safe to say that no religion has such a negative image in Western eyes as Islam.” (p. 11) Why is this so? How have political and economic relationships between the Middle East and Western Europe and the United States impacted perceptions of Islam, in the past and the present? How have they impacted perceptions of the “West” among Muslims?
2. Carl Ernst writes, “Religion never exists in a vacuum. It is always interwoven with multiple strands of culture and history that link it to particular locations. The rhetoric of religion must be put into a context, so that we know both the objectives and the opponents of particular spokespeople.” (p. 30). Discuss this statement using examples from American history.
3. How have conceptions of the term “religion” changed over time? How have they impacted perceptions of Islam and its study?
4. What are the origins of the Islamic faith? Why might Muslims and non-Muslims answer this question differently?
5. In what ways is it appropriate and/or inappropriate to differentiate between Islamic civilization and Western civilization?